After an oddly awkward meal with Ruena, Soral spent his time watching the faerutil tree, impatient to recover his magic. Sometimes Howler watched with him, and sometimes Jazz would approach the tree and try his very best to help. He was still a kitten, so he couldn’t do much.
Perhaps sensing their impatience, Zarius appeared to help out, almost instantly feeding the tree enough magic for a single fruit to grow and ripen. Soral gratefully accepted the soft green fruit and called his thanks to the phoenix as he departed as quickly as he had appeared.
It may have been the influence of Densooth’s latest ban that caused this fruit to taste like all of the delicious poisonous things Soral could no longer eat. It only took a few bites this time for him to feel relief, though he finished the whole fruit anyway. He briefly wondered why he had grown full so much quickly this time around, but was more excited about the prospect of being able to use magic again.
“Ruena!” he called, bursting into the room she was in. She nearly dropped the book she was reading in surprise.
“Soral? Did something happen?”
“Yep. I recovered my magic!” He had also obtained another seed, but she probably wouldn’t care about that.
“You did?” Ruena asked, abandoning her book immediately, “Does that mean you are clear to use magic again?”
“I haven’t asked the old man, if that is what you mean,” Soral told her, “but this is as recovered as I get.”
Ruena considered, then decided everything should be fine. “I’ve been waiting for you to recover,” she admitted, “I did some work on the magic battery design, and I can’t access the materials without your help to go any further.”
“Oh. Sorry about that,” Soral apologized, and immediately went to the workshop to deposit the materials, “I could have grabbed them for you. The pocket doesn’t use any of my magic since it is already enchanted.”
“I didn’t know how much of the magic it would consume to bring all that over and I didn’t want to break it,” Ruena admitted.
“It shouldn’t run out of magic,” Soral replied, but he wasn’t completely sure either, “I will look into that later. Let’s work on the design you drew up.”
The design was more detailed than Soral had expected. She had detailed them down to the magic release systems, and even the possible method for them to connect to whatever magic tool they would be powering. Her prototype would be fairly large, but it was always easier to start large and work down to the smaller, more complicated details later down the road.
Soral looked through the materials as he set them out on the various shelves of the workshop. Since this was just a base prototype, Soral decided to just use one of the glass jars they had provided to hold the magic. He could enchant it if the magic tried to escape.
After that, the two of them spent hours in the workshop, pouring over the minute details and getting very little visible progress done. Rosalie took it upon herself to drag them out for dinner, which Howler had prepared ahead of time. Soral didn’t feel particularly hungry yet, but he wouldn’t turn down food, and it didn’t seem to do much for him anyway.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Howler’s food wasn’t incredibly amazing, but he was decent at cooking, so everyone enjoyed it. Rosalie seemed a bit fed up with the two inventors who had spent the day in the workshop, though.
“I know you need to work on the invention so we can start earning money for the mercenary test,” she began, “but you need to take breaks.”
“They were just excited to start a new project,” Howler said with a shrug, clearly not minding so much.
“Don’t start,” Rosalie scolded, “You and your magical plants are just as bad.”
“Maybe you just need a passion so you don’t feel lonely,” Soral suggested, “Do you want to try to help us?”
That had clearly not been where Rosalie was trying to go with this, but after some consideration, she decided to accept. “Alright, but I probably won’t be much help.”
“You never know,” Soral told her with a smile. She had been a nightmare, so her viewpoints and magic would be completely unique. He figured she might be able to spot the things they were missing.
And he was right. Almost as soon as they got back to the workshop and began working, Rosalie began to ask questions. “Shouldn’t it funnel the magic so it doesn’t try to come through the opening all at once?” for instance. No matter how small the exit was, it might cause problems if the magic didn’t flow to it. It made Soral imagine magic more as a liquid, which gave him even more ideas. He had been picturing it more like something gaseous before.
It became a routine to spend the morning discussing materials, the afternoon taking the break that Rosalie insisted was absolutely necessary, and the evening assembling the ideas they came up with. On the day Soral needed to report to Sibel, they completed the first prototype. It looked like a tall, but skinny glass jar with an odd lid, filled with some kind of glowing liquid.
Soral took it with him to meet Sibel, though both he and Ruena were a bit reluctant to part with it. Naturally, he hid it in his pocket where no one would be able to get any sneak peeks. Just in case. He really needed to make a more secure storage room or two.
“You’re here,” Sibel greeted once Soral entered his office, “How have your studies been going?”
“I learned about the founding legend, the warlord territories, and the Black Wolf appears in history way too much,” Soral reported.
Sibel chuckled. “I suppose he does,” he agreed, “I half expected you to forget to study entirely, but I am glad to see you haven’t ignored it.”
Soral felt a pang of guilt since he had only studied because he had been unable to do anything else. “Yeah… the maps were interesting too.”
“Let me know if you would like a more local book of maps,” Sibel offered, “Have you made any progress on the other thing?”
“I have,” Soral reported, unable to hide his proud smile.
Sibel smiled as well, full of anticipation. “Tell me, how far have you gotten?”
“We made a prototype!” Soral announced, releasing it from his pocket and setting it before Sibel.
This was far more progress than Sibel had expected, and he carefully looked it over. “Have you tested it?”
“No,” Soral admitted, “We don’t have any tools or devices large enough to hook up to it.”
“May I?’ Sibel asked, clearly itching to try out the new toy.
“Yes. Actually, can Ruena see it too? I don’t want her to miss the testing after how hard we worked on it,” Soral told him.
“In that case, take it back,” Sibel told him, “I will come by later with a more compatible device. Have you figured out how to hook things up yet?”
“We have a few ideas,” Soral replied.
“But you haven’t been able to test them,” Sibel finished for him, nodding in understanding, “I will bring some extra supplies for that, just in case. I do have a question, though. How did you turn the magic into liquid?”
Soral glanced at the liquid sloshing inside the glass as he moved the battery back to his pocket. “It was a bit harder than I expected,” he admitted, “At first I tried adding it to water, but that ended pretty badly. Or it would for anything it powered. I guess the best way to describe it is a lot of concentration. I couldn’t just fill it up in one go. The magic comes out in these little drops of liquid, and you have to be careful not to lose them, because if they fall to the ground they evaporate pretty quick.”
“Little drops,” Sibel repeated with wonder, “I can’t wait to test this out. Let the others know I will be coming. Are you still living at that cottage in the woods?”
“Actually, we are at the old castle right now. The farthest corner from the Gray Tower.”
“The castle, is it? This will be the furthest into his domain I have willingly tread. You’ll make sure I get out, won’t you?”
Soral shrugged. “He doesn’t really do much but sit in his tower and read old scrolls,” he told him, “I doubt it will be a problem.”
Sibel couldn’t stop himself from chuckling at the idea of the Black Wolf being an old scribe of sorts obsessed with ancient scrolls. “I’ll have to take your word for it then. How about I bring over dinner, and we can begin testing after?”
“What kind of dinner?” Soral asked, with a bit of curiosity.
“I can’t just tell you that,” Sibel replied, his smile growing, “It’s a surprise.”